


The Things We Carry

by cuideag



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Patch 5.0: Shadowbringers Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-09-01 07:46:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20254660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuideag/pseuds/cuideag
Summary: It is taxing work, planning for the salvation of the world.





	The Things We Carry

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts of an Ascian, a piano, and the music of the night. Inspired by the cover art for a piano collections album. Originally posted on Tumblr.

It is taxing work, planning for the salvation of the world.

Of the Fourteen there are few of you who are friends. To serve with one another is a privilege beyond compare and you all take great, immeasurable pride in who you are and what you do, but at the end of the day it is work and at the end of the day you retreat from your stations and your masks to find a little salvation for yourselves.

Some of you go home and do whatever it is you do when the eyes of the collective are not upon you. Some of you make attempts at leisure out in public, but it’s hit or miss. The citizens are generally courteous enough to leave you be but it is difficult to ignore the worried glances and the tension that settles over everyone in your presence. You have their faith and you have their trust but the rumors from across the sea are dire and there is no amount placating that can stop the betrayal of thought. Sooner or later, it will be too late. It is taxing work, salvation, but if there is anyone who must keep their heads and hearts clear, it is you and the others of the Convocation.

Your course is clear; never in the history of creation has it ever been so clear. But even you are not immune to distraction. You have your lines to tell the citizens who do approach you but there are times when they feel like treachery.

It is late one evening when you decide to accept that you’ve pushed well past your ability to be productive. The Capitol is home to archives nearly as impressive as the collection boasted by the Hall of Rhetoric, albeit of topics and philosophies branded a little less safe for public absorption. You’ve spent much of the afternoon and night after the last official session pouring through pages that, in reflection, have not stuck at all. Looking at them now, you can see little but scribbles and nonsense, so strained is your mind. It is a disappointment you must shoulder among others. Giving up has never been your strong suit, and while a more rational part of you knows you aren’t giving up at all, even putting a pause upon your research feels like a breach in the trust Amaurot puts in you.

There are clerks who will come in the early morning to put away anything you’ve not marked for interest but you take the time to do it yourself, hoping a little bit of manual tedium will put you at ease. It does, a little. Not enough. You dispel the lights with morose thought, and close the door to the study behind you.

From down the hall are sounds. Another wing of books reserved for another branch of study. You do not recall any of the others making their intentions to linger known. Tired as you are, curiosity moves you onward, and when you near the last door at the end you realize that what you are hearing is music.

Out of courtesy you knock but no one responds. You brave a breach in etiquette to push open one of the doors and take a peek inside.

Even if it weren’t for his white robes, you could pick out the absolute perfect neutrality in the line of his lips out of a crowd. It is Elidibus, and he is alone in a study emptied of its desks and chairs. You have come to trust the instinct and inclination of the emissary just as much as anyone else among the Fourteen for he is, as Emet-Selch so often takes it upon himself to remind you, scarcely wrong. It must be exhaustion taking its toll on you, you think, but no matter how long you spy and how long you listen, the reality of things does not change.

It is Elidibus, and he is playing a piano that you are absolutely certain does not belong there and did not exist there hours before.

Words escape you. It would be foolish to think Elidibus does not know you are there but you cannot bring yourself to formally confess to the intrusion. He pays you no mind. The piano sits between you and him but you can still see the focused hunch of his shoulders and the sweeping, controlled motions of his arms. If he emotes anything at all it is concentration, a tightening of his half-masked features. In a calmer age, there was a wager among a few of your peers as to who would be the first make the emissary properly laugh, but you cannot recall if it was ever officially retracted or if those responsible forgot, or gave up.

The music he plays is mesmerizing. Always has he been a private man, never inclined to say more than what is needed to satisfy a conversation, and you are struck at first with a feeling like you should be surprised that Elidibus could add just a talent to his list. It doesn’t: you are not so familiar to be privy to anything but his reputation and what stands on record, and so it defies reason to be shocked. You are moved, instead. As if awakening to your presence, as if empowered by his solitary audience, the song he plays grows bolder. A melody sweeps across deeper notes and beneath it, clear as the chiming of so many bells, higher keys dance along into a crescendo that leaves you stunned.

It is almost a mercy, then, when the song slows and unwinds and releases you from its thrall. At some point during the performance, you raised a hand and clutched at the front of your robes, and you realize that you’ve been staring slack-jawed like a common fool. You forget that you are drained and that you have somewhere else to be, and for the brief pause that follows after the last note fades into silence, you forget your voice as well.

He beats you to it. “You will appreciate that,” he says, “But not today.”

You are compelled to question him, but the emissary does not wait for you to shake off your confusion. He doesn’t even look at you. Nevertheless, you get the feeling that he is pleased with himself in some small way. It is well established that Elidibus thinks and works in ways beyond your comprehension, especially at this hour, and you are inclined to leave him to it than risk insult. Before you can even murmur your apology and excuse yourself for the trespass, he is already weaving together another song. It follows you down the hall of the darkened Capitol building, and the memory of that melody is what carries you to rest that night. There is nothing that the emissary does without reason. Surely, it was more than a coincidence that you stumbled upon him as you did. 

It is a puzzle for another day. When the dust has settled, and when the star holds resilient against the coming cataclysm, you promise yourself will ask him about it.

You don’t. As with so many things, you forget.

The emissary carries on and so, too, do you.

* * *

There are times, under the gentle break of night, that you look up at the sky of whatever land, whatever world you find yourself on. Something about the stars or a scent on the wind or the glow of the moon reminds you of a melody you aren’t quite certain you can hear. You try to, anyway, compelled as you are by whim and whimsy. The Scions mind not your humming in the least, and if it puts you at ease then all the better.

It doesn’t. As with so many things, it troubles you.

You take a little time to distract yourself with some tedium: the flowers of Il Mheg in particular are striking and, when the heavens are aligned just so, you find you take some peace in going out among the hills and collecting a few samples. As your mind wanders, you find yourself humming. [There is a melody](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkDUweRu6yw) that comes to you when the moon is high and the sky is clear. It is familiar, maddeningly so, but you cannot place it no matter how hard you mull on it and the harder you mull on it, the more eagerly it escapes you.

It is a puzzle for another sun. The Lightwardens await you yet and there are greater concerns than your wandering imagination. When next you see Emet-Selch, should he be feeling charitable enough to field your usual slew of questions, you promise yourself you will ask him about it.

You don’t.


End file.
